From early childhood the family and the educational system everywhere have the dedicated role conveying the cultural norms and values of the given society. They do so even with values regarding the human body. Our very basic concepts of the body such as body image, body functions, health, hygiene, ability and disability and more complex and socially embedded ones, such age, gender, sexuality, relationships also crucially formed from early childhood in and by the educational system. Part of this process lead by explicit pedagogical aims from the school side but some of those unconsciously convey messages which reflect the values of the society. National curricula based on written pedagogical methodology, child-psychological theories and the cultural tradition of a given country. This background gives the educational systems the guidelines: what is considered being ´normal´, accepted or socially unacceptable, dysfunctional, pathological. These guidelines sometimes enter in conflict with the norms and values held by parents. A recent example was the resistance brought by parents towards the introduction of “gender” in French schools, leading to the withdrawal of good part of the reforms. In multicultural societies such occasions for divergence or opposite values can occur more and more frequently, even if not at the national scale, but in the form of isolated incidents. In this context our project wishes to: 1) Contribute to the development of education policies and practices on intercultural education, gender education and inclusion of children / parents of minority cultural backgrounds – through our analysis of existing practices and the assessment of the method we develop. 2) Contribute to the development of teachers’ competences through new methods for teacher training and new practical tools ready to adapt, concretely: • Develop an understanding of cultural differences having an impact on early childhood education, develop tools to solve possible tensions and conflicts • Develop skills and creative tools to address issues of cultural diversity, gender, and health with the children • Offer tools to involve parents (of migrant and non migrant origin) and engage them in dialogue about sensitive issues such as cultural differences, gender, body, health 3) Contribute to the development of school’s capacity to address cultural diversity, to ensure that children of different cultural backgrounds and their parents are not excluded and equip children for participation in an intercultural society tolerant towards gender diversity. Offer tools and strategies to address sensitive issues such as gender. To reach these objectives we’ll develop, test and assess: - a comparative study of school practices and national curricula, - a reader of cultural diversity focusing on practical case studies and background explanations on relevant cultural practices - a reader of parent inclusion helping teachers and schools to engage parents - a manual and toolkit of practical activities for teacher to tackle issues of diversity, gender, body, health with young children. - an online course for teacher to acquire our project results During our project we’ll directly involve in activities approximately 250 teachers, 50 parents and 100 children. Through our dissemination activities we’ll reach at least 2500 people. Or long term ambition is to propose working tools and strategies that allow a better taking into account of cultural diversity and gender diversity in early childhood education in order to better prepare children for participation in modern European intercultural societies. To achieve this, at all three levels we’ll take steps to present our conclusions and results to decision-makers and actors in teacher-training, in particular: IO1 – the reader of school practices can present a mirror to decision-makers of education policies by putting into international perspective the dominant national practices. IO2-IO4: the readers and manuals can serve as inspiration or concrete training material to include in teachers’ initial or continuous trainings The assessment report on IO4 can give arguments for the introduction of such activities into early childhood education.